Several users encounter problems and difficulties during and after installation of the two new Windows service packs that Microsoft released earlier this year. Both service packs will be automatically downloaded later this year to computers that have automatic updates enabled, which could prove disastrous for companies who cannot afford that they computers stop working after the update.
A solution would obviously be to disable automatic updates, but that’s probably not a preferred solution by many as well as it interferes with regular patches as well. The easiest way to block the automatic download and installation of both Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is a Registry key that has to be added to the Registry. This key prevents the installation for twelve months.
The update problems should be sorted out by that time, and if they have not been it is still possible to disable automatic updates. To add the entry to the Registry do the following. Press Windows R, type regedit, hit enter.
The Registry opens and we need to navigate to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate and create a new DWORD named DoNotAllowSP there. The value of the DWORD has to be set to 1.
An alternative would be to create a new text document, paste the following three lines into it and rename the document to block.reg afterwards.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]
"DoNotAllowSP"=dword:00000001
A double-click creates the new Registry key automatically. The block can be removed by either deleting the Registry key again or by setting the dword value to 0 instead.
Update: Windows XP users by now should all be on Service Pack 3. The majority of Vista users as well should have moved on, and now have Windows Vista Service Pack 2 installed on their systems. It is highly unlikely that Microsoft will release another service pack for either operating system.
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For folks who don’t want to fiddle directly in the registry Microsoft also offers the following tool:
Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit
Includes an executable to accomplish the same thing, a script to run for remote workstations, and a tool to help with Active Directory Group Policy usage.
Direct reg editing should work fine, but this is an “official” alternative from Microsoft.
–Cheers